AUTOSTRADAFORUMTHE PASSION, HISTORY & JOURNEY

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SPRING 2018

FERRARI ROAD TRIPWEST COAST RALLY FOR A CAUSE

BEAUTY IN THE BEASTCHRIS LEE’S 1949 FORD CUSTOM

LEGACY OF PASSIONANDREW GOODMAN’S 1965 CORVETTE

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COLLECTING PASSION

FOUNDER OF RACING HALL OF FAME COLLECTION, DARREN JACK

TURNED A CHILDHOOD HOBBY INTO AN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS

ROOTED IN MOTORSPORT HISTORY AND CULTURE.

STORY BY NATHAN KELLY

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AUTOSTRADA

There’s an old Formula 1 racing

wheel that sits in Darren Jack’s

collection of motorsport

memorabilia, serving as a

functional coffee table. Like each of

the pieces showcased in the Racing

Hall of Fame Collection, it has a story

that contributes to its value, a story

that is stewarded and sometimes

even generated by Darren. This particular

objet d’auto, is one of his oldest and

most precious.

Its story starts back in Europe in 1992,

when Darren was just a 12-year-old

boy from the UK, visiting the Formula

One Belgian Grand Prix at the Circuit de

Spa-Francorchamps with his family. They

were watching the Saturday practice

laps when a young up and coming driver

named Michael Schumacher approached

the notorious hairpin corner, La Source,

lost control and spun out, damaging one

of his car’s rear wheels. At the end of the

day, an incredible opportunity presented

itself to Darren when he spotted the

damaged F1 wheel in the team’s trash pile

in the paddock.

“I was by myself as my family had already

walked back to the campsite,” recalls

Darren. He quickly decided that he

needed to have it. “I was a young, small,

skinny, 12-year-old kid and the wheel

was rather large and awkward. It took me

like three hours, but I walked back to our

campsite through the woods carrying

this wheel…I remember getting back and

being exhausted. I think it was raining. I

held the wheel over my head like I’d just

won the Stanley Cup or something.”

Darren’s father did not share the same

enthusiasm at the time, citing the lack of

available cargo space in the family vehicle

as the main reason for this outlook. Darren

ignored this paternal advice, however, and

sat with the F1 wheel on his lap in the small

English car for the entire 16-hour drive back

to their home country. At the time, he had

no idea exactly how special this piece of

memorabilia would become. Fast-forward

a couple decades and a crashed wheel

from Michael Schumacher’s Formula One

debut win is an incredible piece of history.

For Darren Jack, the allure of motorsport

memorabilia has sculpted a lifelong

journey filled with passion and stories. Like

all motorsport enthusiasts, the obsession

began at a young age with influence from

his father. “We grew up around the sport,”

he says. “My grandfather was a mechanic

for Ken Wharton, who raced in F1 in the

50s, and my father grew up as a huge fan,

and still is today. So naturally my brother,

Kristian, and I were born in to it.”

Darren’s first Grand Prix experience was

at age the age of four, in Imola. There he

picked up a giant tattered Ferrari flag that

was left in a puddle on the ground that

day—he still has it today. Their location in

the UK gave the young enthusiast and his

family regular access to such events as

Formula One, Sportscar Racing, MotoGP,

Speedway Bike Racing and the Isle of

Man TT.

As a youngster, to have the chance to

run around the paddock of a professional

motorsport event and meet the drivers

was a dream come true. Naturally these

events supplied plenty of memorabilia and

souvenirs that he collected as tokens. He

regularly spent hours in the dark, waiting

for his favourite drivers to walk out of the

track, hoping for an autograph, sticker or

a photo of him with his hero.

To this day, Darren remains particularly

fond of the Isle of Man TT, the most

dangerous and exciting motorbike race in

the world, held on a small Island between

Ireland and Great Britain. Since 1907,

this time-trial race performed on closed

public roads has claimed the lives of over

250 people, a fact that does little to deter

the incredible enthusiasm of the event,

which truly is something you have to see

to understand.

For Darren, who has attended the race

almost every year since he was five,

the TT paddock is like a family reunion.

Frequent encounters with the likes of

Joey Dunlop (rated in a 2016 poll as the

second most iconic motorcycle rider in

history behind Valentino Rossi, whom

Darren also met when they were both just

15 years old) and other riders led to an

even greater emotional investment in the

race. Tragically, Joey would later lose his

life during a race in July of 2000. Losses

like this are the hardest part of motorsport,

says Darren.

It was when he took up photography as

a hobby that access to drivers started to

come more readily. “Taking photos before

there were things like Google Images was

rather special,” says Darren. The drivers

would often be ecstatic to see current

photos of themselves in action and ask

him for copies, which he happily traded

for small items like visors, old gloves and

shoes. After doing this for some time,

he was able to save up and buy some

helmets, which is when the collection

really began to take off.

As Darren got older he began to see

that there was an opportunity in the

motorsport business that he may be

able to grab ahold of. When, in 1999, at

age 19, his family moved from the UK to

Canada, he focused his lens and energy

on IndyCar racing, the top open wheel

series in North America. Indy has some

of the most spirited personalities in the

world of motorsport, with a rich history

that provides an intimate connection

between fans and drivers. Events such as

the Indianapolis 500 became a fascination

for Darren, and his collection began to

expand to represent that.

“I am particularly proud of my Indy 500

Champions Collection,” says Darren.

“I tracked down an original race-used

helmet and/or suit from every winner from

1957 to 2017. I have a few more helmets

from earlier than that, too, including the

first man to drink milk in 1933, three-time

winner Louis Meyer.” Another stand-out

piece is what is believed to be the world’s

oldest driving suit, which belonged to

1911 Indy 500 Pole Sitter Lewis Strang.

What began as a fan passion is now a

professional career, with Darren having

established relationships with motorsport

household names such as Mario Andretti,

Emerson Fittipaldi, Alexander Rossi, Lewis

Hamilton and Jorge Lorenzo. He also

works with professional MotoGP, IndyCar,

and F1 drivers to represent the sales of

their race-worn equipment

and collections on his website

www.racinghalloffamecollection.com.

This niche business is the result of decades

of networking and self-establishment. His

work has also brought him into contact

with plenty of other celebrities from

outside the world of motorsport. At the

100th running of the Indianapolis 500 in

2016, for example, he helped put the deal

together for music sensation Lady Gaga

to attend the event.

“At the time, Lady Gaga was dating my

good friend Taylor Kinney,” he recalls.

“And she was curious why Taylor and I

had such a great time at the races. So, at

first we invited her just off the cuff, almost

incognito, as a fan, if you like. Then Scott

Borchetta of Big Machine Records called

me the day before the race as his artist was

set to appear in the two-seater IndyCar

but had to pull out at the last minute.

Mario Andretti was unhappy as they had

done a lot of press, but with Scott and

IndyCar’s help, we saved the day and

Gaga flew in at 2 am on race day.” Within

a few hours, she had a fire suit and helmet

on and was strapped into the passenger

seat of Mario’s IndyCar, set to lead the

field of 33 to the green flag in front of

approximately 400,000 fans.

“She really embraced the event, came

out for dinner afterwards with James

Hinchcliffe, myself and some other

friends, and then came to the driver after

party and danced the night away,” he says.

“It was a big success.”

At age 38, Darren has developed a full-

scale business with connections across

the globe. He is constantly busy setting

up displays of automotive memorabilia,

doing on-stage driver interviews for

circuits, representing professional racecar

drivers and collectors or taking calls and

emails from clients looking to buy or

sell. His staff report from the UK, Canada

and the US, helping him manage the

increasing volume of his business.

The next step forward for Darren, is

the growth of his driver management

business. “I like to put money in drivers’

pockets,” he says. “It’s an expensive sport

and I want to help young drivers get what

they deserve. Understanding the team’s

perspective and corporate partners’

needs is also key, so finding the right deal

for everybody is important for me.”

From picking up discarded flags and

wheels at motorsports events as a child,

to using a network built from a lifetime

of hustle buying and selling motorsport

memorabilia to help young drivers get

a start; Darren’s journey from passion

to profession has come full circle, but

something tells us he’s far from finished.

As a footnote to this story: Darren

just informed us that he has acquired

the iconic Blue helmet used by Steve

McQueen in the famed 1971 cult movie

Le Mans which is being dubbed as the

“Million Dollar Helmet”.

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